Stumbling around the internet, I discovered this wonderful website called BookMooch.com. It’s a site for ridding yourself of unwanted books and getting new ones in return. All you have to do is sign up, register your books and start mooching!
The signing up is pretty straight foward, it asks you for all the usual information, you will have to have a postal address so people can send you books. If you don’t want to put your home address then you could use your work address or set up a Post Office box. You can also request where in the world you are willing to send books to, bearing in mind postage for heavy items is expensive. I have my settings set to “Ask me if I will send a book to your country” so I can see how much postage is before I send a book.
To register your unwanted books you enter the book’s ISBN number (usually located above the barcode) into a form and the website adds the book to your inventory so people can mooch it. For each book you register you get 1/10th of a point.
Points are used to mooch books from other people. You get 1/10th of a point for registering a book, 3 points if someone from abroad mooches a book from you and a lower amount of points if someone local mooches a book from you.
You will get an email when someone mooches a book from you, it will give you the option to accept or decline the mooch. Once accepted you will have to parcel up the requested book and send it off to the Moocher.
To mooch books off other people you just search for books or authors you like and then when you have found the perfect book you click the “Mooch this book” button and follow a few steps and the book you want will hopefully be winging it’s way to you. If the book you want isn’t available you can add it to a “wishlist” and the website will email you when someone puts that book up for swapping.
It’s so exciting about getting my mail these days, I never know what’s going to come through my letterbox next, so far I’ve managed to get my hands on some great books I’ve been wanting for a while, for free! If you like books this is a great site to get free (or the cost of posting out your unwanted books) books if you don’t mind them being second hand.
Books I have Mooched
Links about Book Swapping;
